LECTURE IV. THE RITUAL LAW OF THE AMERICAN IN CHURCH-ITS RELATIONS ΤΟ THE PRESENT ENGLISH PRAYER N presenting the fundamental principles of the American Prayer Book as expressed on its titlepage, we noted that it was declared to be " according to the USE of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States," and also that by "use" in this connection was meant not usage or custom, but obligatory, authoritative law. Hence that the Prayer Book is not simply a "Directory" of general forms, to be a sort of guide to the clergy and indication to the people of the mode of service they are to perform or to expect, but that it is the law of "this Church" for all that concerns the administration of every Sacrament, or order of public worship, or other rite and ceremony which is established and set forth therein. It is as such the people are to follow and be taught by it; as such every minister who stands beside its altar has bound himself by a solemn promise, and in his ordination vow to receive and conform to it, and as such it is to be accepted and obeyed, both text and Rubric, in every service which it has given to perform, and in every office which it has appointed. There is a wide-spread tendency at the present time, and from schools of theology the most diverse and even conflicting, to favor what has been speciously called "the Catholic liberty of the priest at the altar," by which is meant to claim that every minister in our Church has a right to alter, add or omit, at his will, whatever in either the language or ritual of any office he may think advisable as a matter of taste, or required for the introduction or suppression of any special doctrine, discipline of life, or mode of worship which seems to him of sufficient importance to be embodied, emphasized or discountenanced in the service as he presents this to his congregation. Under this "liberty" one assumes that he may leave out the word "regenerate," as against his conscience, in the Baptismal Office; another that he may use the English "Te Deum," because better adapted to his favorite musical notation than the American recension; and yet others that they may interpolate an indefinite number of ceremonials into the Communion service, because they desire what they think to be a more "Catholic" mode of celebrating the Holy Eucharist than that which is appointed in our Rubrics. It has, indeed, been confidently asserted in this connection, that the time of uniformity in the services of our branch of the Church has wholly and finally passed away, and that both the principle and practice of individual freedom in the performance of the Church's service, with no restraint from Rubric or "Use," have "come to stay." Much of this disposition to exercise these large powers has come from the desire for a more satisfactory adaptation of our offices of worship to the special needs of this age and country than the letter of the Prayer Book seems now to grant, and is the result of a sense of the necessity that, for this purpose, the Church should allow her ministers a corresponding "flexibility" in the conduct of her services. The American Church is certainly called to meet conditions of society and life which were wholly unknown to the framers of the Prayer Book, or to the times in which they lived; and for some of these there is no definite or really adequate provision made in the existing letter of the offices that we now have. That we must recognize and must provide for these new needs of a great new world, by such arrangements or permission as will allow the clergy to meet them as they arise, and to minister to them as the conditions may require, there can be no doubt or reasonable question. And there is no occasion to fear but in some mode or other this will be done, and in all that is really important the requirements of our work in this respect be fully satisfied. But while the claims for unrestrained liberty in matters of ritual are thus associated in the minds of many with these necessities of practical work, it is not chiefly in connection with this subject that the issues concerning strict obedience to the letter of the Prayer Book have been raised, nor is it with reference to this that the "ritual liberty of the priest" has been most zealously contended for. The interests most often involved in this question, whether on the one hand or the other, have been some phase of theological opinion, and the freedom desired has been in one direction the liberty to make the service of the Church express or emphasize certain doctrines by the introduction into its performance of some form or ceremonial which would convey the intended teaching more fully or clearly than the text or Rubric of the office, while in another line it has been with the design to remove from the service of the Church doctrines which the minister did not approve, by the omission of the words or acts in which they had been embodied from the office of which they formed a part. In the one case as in the other the claim is, that under the ritual law of the American Church, each individual priest has the authority 1and the right to add to or take from the text or Rubric of an office what seems to him advisable, and so to change it as to make it conform to the doctrine or the ceremonial which he thinks of sufficient importance to be thus presented. 1 The position that entire ritual liberty is allowed to the clergy of "this Church," under its existing ecclesiastical jurisprudence, is so clearly and forcibly stated by a writer in the "Church and World," New York, October, 1874, that I cannot present the principle assumed better than by quoting from it. "The old and original principle of American Churchmen is, that where there is no law there ought to be no transgression. This entire liberty of ritual is one of the most strikingly distinctive features of our American Church; it is peculiarly in harmony with the characteristics of the American people; it was deliberately adopted at the organization of the American Church after the Revolutionary War." "The law of liberty of ritual is the law of this Church, which every bishop, priest and deacon of the same has bound himself to observe, obey and follow; and every bishop, presbyter or other who attempts to interfere with or restrict that liberty of ritual is a breaker of the law." This leads to a consideration of the question, What are the relations and obligations of the members of the American Church, and especially the clergy, to its ritual as appointed in the Prayer Book? We say "especially of its clergy," for they have the chief part in the performance of every service, and they are also the appointed stewards and teachers of the doctrines and precepts of the Church, hence, of necessity the administration of its offices and ordinances belongs to them. There are occasional directions for the guidance of the people in some acts of peculiar significance; they are told to "kneel" here or to "stand" there, or sometimes what to "say with" or "say after" the minister in portions of the service which are of special importance. But in the main, and for the reasons given, the appointments concerning the ritual of the Prayer Book were made chiefly for the clergy, and hence the obligation and responsibility for a right ministration of that ritual rests almost wholly on them. "Some are scandalized at the sight of this immense amount of freedom, and assume that there must be some limits to it which are not expressed in American legislation." There are very many who assume for themselves the entire freedom here claimed, but deny it to those who would apply the same principle to views antagonistic to their own, but the author of the above cited article is as logical as he is frank. Either we have a law which requires conscientious and literal obedience in all its parts from all, or we are without any law, and every one is equally at liberty to manipulate the services of the Church as he desires. It is well to have the matter so stated that every one may see just what it does imply, and also the admission that such a claim is wholly new in the history of the Church, hence cannot be regarded as an element of her Catholic and ancient polity. |